Hi Molzy,
About the chronic wasting disease- these tissues are known to harbor and concentrate the abnormal proteins-prions- brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes in an infected animal, although I’ve also read they can be in other tissues, even in blood.
Even high temperature cooking/irradiation does not destroy them.
Its not likely your dog or even you would get anything from them, specific prions have difficulty jumping the species barrier, although it HAS been thought/known to happen. Dogs thus far, and as far as I know, havent been reported to get any prion diseases, but it doesnt neccesarily mean they dont, cant or wont. So far there are about 4 or 5 of these transmissible and fatal prion diseases known to occur in humans, 1 in cats, 1 in cattle (BSE or mad cow) 1 in sheep/goats (scrapie) 1 in mink.
I posted about it the other day as a precautionary measure. You might want to avoid eating or feeding any of the above tissues if you live in a an area where CWD is known to be prevalent in the wild, or any tissues at all from a deer, elk or moose that is behaving sickly or oddly.
Here is more info on Transmissible spongiform encephalopathys, see also chronic wasting disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmissible_spongiform_encephalopathy
About MPC and their calorie fiasco. Thats something that recently appeared on their website. I agree there is absolutely no way those figures are correct. Also their protein and fat figures dont always jive. The bad thing is that the phone number that they provide is Paul’s cell phone number. I called Paul about two weeks ago when I saw these figures onsite. Paul also personally makes deliveries, which he was doing when I called. I told him that their was no way the calorie counts were right, take the chicken super mix for example-theres no way 1 pound could contain only 217 calories, and especially given the very high (supposedly) fat figures given. Even skinless, boneless chicken breast has way more calories than that. He told me that they had folks wanting to know the calorie counts so they obtained lab results showing those figures. I still insisted something was very wrong. He said that he could check back with the lab, but couldnt do much until he returned from his deliveries which would be a week or so. So I told him I would be calling back. Your post reminded me to call him, and I just got off the phone with him. He now agrees that something isnt right (probably has had lotso phone calls about), but that they still havent got it sorted out. When/if they get that sorted out I have more questions/concerns for him.
